*falls over laughing*

[shermarama]

Oh, dearie me, I haven't been this amused in a while. I can't, at this point, form a rational opinion on it, I'm afraid, I'm too busy laughing.

News article
Band website

That is, in a marketing exercise for the new Burger King Chicken Fries, there is now a punk metal band called Coq Roq, with chicken-fries-themed songs, Slipknot-style masks and pseudonyms like Fowl Mouth and Free Range. The website has band profiles, songs, biography, the works. The idea is to target teens, by claiming that the band - and therefore the FRIED CHICKEN NUGGETS TRIVIALLY DIFFERENT BUT ESSENTIALLY IDENTICAL TO ALL OTHER CHOPPED, REFORMED, BATTERED, FRIED CHICKEN NUGGETS SOLD IN THE WORLD, AS SERVED BY A MAJOR MULTINATIONAL COMPANY IN AN RIGIDLY INDENTICAL, TIGHTLY PLANNED FASHION ACROSS THE FACE OF THE GLOBE *breathes* 'rebel against convention'.

There are reports of Slipknot trying to suppress this as the style and the masks are too similar to their own, but the music sounds nowt like 'em, much lighter and much more glam. To be honest they're much closer to GWAR without the occasional blastbeats, or Green Jello.

So this is a parody band, in a fine tradition of parody bands, creating some quite catchy tunes from the building blocks of the conventions that certainly exist in rock and punk (there's even a nod to GNR's Mr. Brownstone in one tune), right down to the formulaic claiming of being rebellious (*beats breast* I confess!! I've done it too! It's so tempting, when you're trying to concoct band biographies, to reach for the cliches...) only, all being done in the name of advertising. And they're not even the first fast food chain to do it, apparently Jack In The Box invented a boy band called the Meaty Cheesy Boys for some adverts a few years ago. I'm lost, I'm aswim in the deluges of convention involved, I've no idea how many crosses we're up to. I'm going to have to settle for just laughing at it.

But, shit. Just made me post a long edit about Burger King in an LJ that's supposed to be about music, by a near-vegetarian who probably hasn't eaten a burger chain product in most of a decade (no; I bought some BK fries while desperate at a mostly-shut London Bridge last year, and they were awful. And James has a weird fascination with McMuffins that must have last led me that way about, oh, three years ago.) I think I might be impressed. I'm still very unlikely to ever buy any but, s'viral innit? *You* might now.

Comments

[lovelyoliver.livejournal.com]

i'd love to know who the band actually are and if they've done time in any failed american underground acts i've heard of.

[ironlord.livejournal.com]

What...
in...
the...
name...
of...

Kill them. Kill them all.

[rgl.livejournal.com]

The thing is, presumably this band aren't really a band at all. I mean, it's not unusual for parody songs to be recorded for adverts, and the only additional thing that's going on in this case is that there's a website. OK, so the website is ostensibly devoted to the band who recorded the advert music, but in fact the band aren't playing any gigs, or selling anything of their own as far as I can see, so really it's just a website devoted to the advert. Isn't it?

[lovelyoliver.livejournal.com]

true, but some poor sods must have left their dignity at the door and written and recorded the tunes...

[shermarama]

Yep, if you read the band biogs and rummage for news items about it, there seems to be a collection of actual musicians behind it. Well, listen to it, these are people who are at least familiar with the field. Wondering whether any of them have done time in underground bands we know, that's the interesting bit.

It doesn't matter either way whether there is a 'real' band or not, the question's meaningless in the context.

[failmaster.livejournal.com]

...FACE OF THE GLOBE *breathes* 'rebel against convention'.

You old cynic you! :) You mean to say you don't honestly believe they're doing it for the... erm... artistic value... or something?